My harmless little rant

earlier tonight, I was riding on my grandparents’ car on our way home from the hospital. My dad has this major operation for his broken ligament and was confined in an hospital at Makati. Through our drive in Marikina market proper, my grandpa, who’s behind the wheel, narrowly missed a steel post which divides the lane for public utility vehicles and for private ones. The steel post is pretty difficult to see, probably waiting for unwary or drunk drivers to crash their cars into it. Low light lampposts aren’t not that much help either.

My grandpa said they should out some bright warning lights on the steel pole to avoid impending accidents on those part of the streets. My grandma, who knows that my grandpa is an influential man in the local police unit and is good friends with the mayor and vice-mayor themselves,lightly advised my grandpa that he should bring this up his friends, because some parts of Marikina, other than here, can be pretty dangerous at night due to the low lights.

And what did my grandpa said? He said it’s not his problem. That those living on that part of Marikina the ones who should do something about it because it’s their street. He’s living in another barangay (sub-community of city in the Philippines) and his concerns won’t go beyond his barangay.

I like to point out that we’re passing through this part of the city every damn day and who knows, our car might be the first one to crash into the pole but believe me, when my grandpa’s on a gattling-vapid mood, you won’t get a chance to butt in.

And what’s with that kind of attitude? We’re all Marikeños. Every single problem in Marikina is our problem, regardless of what barangay we’re residing, or how big our houses, or even if we have our own cars. Every driver in Marikina has an equal chance of getting into a freak accident with that stupid pole, and when that happens, we blame it on the local government unit for not putting cautionary lights on it in the first place. Why not blame ourselves first? We see the problem every day, and we didn’t do a darn thing about it. The government is no Big Brother which can see everything.

And what’s the deal with regionalism? It’s the problem I’ve observed about most of us Filipinos. On how we like to address ourselves first with the location we’re living, like Ilocanos, Cebuanos, Visayans, Tagalogs. I get the diversity of our culture and geographical differences but can’t we identify ourselves as a Filipino first before our ethnic origins? Our sense of exclusivity and egocentricity is one of the things that divide us apart as a nation.

Now’s not the time for complaining about problems in our society. It’s about doing something about it. Even if our efforts may go in vain, or end in failure, at least we can’t blame ourselves for the consequences of that problems. And if our efforts did lead to a good solution, we can all triumph on its birth and join in with the celebration for what we hoped as a better change.

For the Marikina LGU, before the great intersection at Bayan, a steel pole lined up with steel barricade divides PUV lanes from that of private vehicles. The steel pole is virtually invisible during nighttime, where the roads are half-empty with cars. I wish you can do something about it to avoid future accidents from happening. I’ll try to post a picture it as soon as I can. Thank you!

The author is a Filipina who writes wild stories as porn and sacred ones as the Bible. She's been writing random things since she was 5. She is an advertising and marketing practitioner who is pursuing the passion to inspire every person in her life through writing.